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Two days before Christmas, Babak Saidi’s father dropped off his schizophrenic son outside the Morrisburg OPP detachment for a routine probation check-in. Minutes later, the 43-year-old was shot and killed by an OPP officer.
The details of his killing have gone largely unexplained as the province’s police watchdog investigates the case.
And while Saidi’s family waits for answers, they’re calling for better training for officers who deal with the mentally ill.
Saidi had a lengthy criminal record that included a string of convictions for drug trafficking, dangerous driving and assault. He had been in and out of jail for most of his adult life.
Elly Saidi said her brother, who had been diagnosed with late onset schizophrenia and social paranoia, was trying to remake his life on a farm near Iroquois, Ont., at the time of his death.
“This is yet another shocking example of a lethal police response to an unarmed person with mental health disabilities,” Saidi said. “I want everyone to learn from this tragic experience.”
Babak Saidi, 43, was shot Dec. 23 by an OPP police officer as he went to report to the Morrisburg detachment as part of a probation order. Saidi, who had a lengthy criminal record, had been diagnosed with late onset schizophrenia and social paranoia.
Babak Saidi’s death occurred less than two years after Abdirahman Abdi, 37, an immigrant from Somalia with mental health issues, died in a confrontation with Ottawa police. Const. Daniel Montison has been charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. He’s to go on trial in February 2019.
Saidi’s death is being investigated by the provincial police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, which has assigned four investigators and three forensic specialists to the case.
A lone subject officer has been designated. That means that SIU investigators believe only one OPP officer fired the shots, or shot, that struck and killed Saidi.
That officer has not been publicly identified.
The circumstances of Saidi’s death remain unexplained. What is known is that Saidi’s 83-year-old father, Mehrab, dropped him off for his probation check-in late on the morning of Dec. 23. Moments later, Saidi had some kind of altercation with an officer outside the detachment and was shot. He was later pronounced dead on scene.
Mehrab Saidi heard “multiple gunshots” while in his car, Elly Saidi said, and was instructed by police to wait at a nearby coffee shop for more information. Hours later, he was told of his son’s death.
Saidi’s family remains in the dark about why his routine check-in at the police station suddenly turned deadly. “It would be good to get an explanation for what happened,” said Elly Saidi. “I don’t know what instigated it: Why this time was so different than every other time?”
Her brother, she said, had gone to the same OPP station more than 30 times — every week for nine months — without incident in 2017.
Elly Saidi is chief executive of United World Voices, a registered charity in Ottawa that works with homeless youth and vulnerable women. She said her brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia early last year after the family pushed to have him assessed by a psychiatrist as part of a court proceeding.
The family had long believed that his criminality was fuelled by mental illness, but had never been able to get him diagnosed.
“We told lawyers for many years he needs help,” she said. “Like a lot of people in his position, they fall through the cracks. He should have been assessed and treated much earlier. We knew there was something wrong with him, but it was hard to get anyone to listen. That’s the frustrating part.”
Babak Saidi was born in Iran. His family, members of the persecuted Baha’i Faith community, fled the country while he was still a child after the Iranian revolution in 1979. They earned refugee status in Canada in 1985 and settled in Brockville.
Saidi went to Brockville Collegiate Institute, but struggled with attention deficit disorder and dropped out in Grade 10. He later developed a drug habit, which led him into the local drug trade.
He became a notorious figure in Brockville.
Saidi almost died in February 2000 when he was shot in the stomach by a man seeking revenge for an assault on his daughter. The shotgun blast peppered Saidi’s abdomen with 80 pellets and led to the removal of one of his kidneys.
Saidi was arrested in his hospital bed and charged with drug possession for the purpose of trafficking — cocaine and cash were found in his pockets — and assaulting a woman. He was sentenced to 22 months in jail for those offences.
Saidi felt harassed by the police. In one 2003 court hearing, a 29-year-old Saidi told a judge that police in Brockville “have been on my ass for 10 years.”
“They don’t like me and I don’t like them,” he told Ontario Court Justice Charles Anderson.
Elly Saidi said that while she doesn’t know what happened at the Morrisburg OPP detachment, she does know that her brother should not have died in the encounter.
“What is beyond doubt is that OPP members involved in this tragedy were unable to peacefully de-escalate this situation,” she said. “The OPP resorted to a lethal response to an unarmed individual with mental disabilities.”
She said the family wants the OPP to introduce comprehensive, mandatory training programs to better equip officers to deal with the mentally ill.
“I know that things can escalate from zero to 100 in a few seconds with mentally ill people,” she said. “The police need to know how to deal with that, how to de-escalate and contain the situation.”
The OPP did not respond to a request for comment on that suggestion.
In November 2015, the OPP published a report, Our People, Our Communities, which highlighted the increasing importance of mental health issues in policing. It said the OPP experienced a 42 per cent increase in calls for service related to mental health issues between 2007 and 2013. The service now handles more than 12,000 such calls each year.
In 2016, the OPP introduced a mandatory, half-day training session on de-escalation techniques for all uniformed officers. Last year, front-line officers received another half-day of training on mental illness and de-escalation.
“While there is more to be done, important strides have been made,” OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes said recently. “This is, in large pat, due to our members’ genuine desire to improve dealings with those who are going through a mental health crisis.”
Statistics compiled last year by Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director revealed that 142 people were fatally shot during interactions with police between January 1990 and December 2016.
“In many of these cases, the person shot by police was ‘in crisis,’” wrote police review director Gerry McNeilly in a March 2017 report.
That report reviewed recommendations made by 32 coroner’s inquests in Ontario during the past two decades and concluded: “Improved training for police officers focusing on identifying the symptoms of a person in crisis, containment, communication and de-escalation rather than the use of force has been recommended repeatedly.”
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The details of his killing have gone largely unexplained as the province’s police watchdog investigates the case.
And while Saidi’s family waits for answers, they’re calling for better training for officers who deal with the mentally ill.
Saidi had a lengthy criminal record that included a string of convictions for drug trafficking, dangerous driving and assault. He had been in and out of jail for most of his adult life.
Elly Saidi said her brother, who had been diagnosed with late onset schizophrenia and social paranoia, was trying to remake his life on a farm near Iroquois, Ont., at the time of his death.
“This is yet another shocking example of a lethal police response to an unarmed person with mental health disabilities,” Saidi said. “I want everyone to learn from this tragic experience.”
Babak Saidi, 43, was shot Dec. 23 by an OPP police officer as he went to report to the Morrisburg detachment as part of a probation order. Saidi, who had a lengthy criminal record, had been diagnosed with late onset schizophrenia and social paranoia.
Babak Saidi’s death occurred less than two years after Abdirahman Abdi, 37, an immigrant from Somalia with mental health issues, died in a confrontation with Ottawa police. Const. Daniel Montison has been charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. He’s to go on trial in February 2019.
Saidi’s death is being investigated by the provincial police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, which has assigned four investigators and three forensic specialists to the case.
A lone subject officer has been designated. That means that SIU investigators believe only one OPP officer fired the shots, or shot, that struck and killed Saidi.
That officer has not been publicly identified.
The circumstances of Saidi’s death remain unexplained. What is known is that Saidi’s 83-year-old father, Mehrab, dropped him off for his probation check-in late on the morning of Dec. 23. Moments later, Saidi had some kind of altercation with an officer outside the detachment and was shot. He was later pronounced dead on scene.
Mehrab Saidi heard “multiple gunshots” while in his car, Elly Saidi said, and was instructed by police to wait at a nearby coffee shop for more information. Hours later, he was told of his son’s death.
Saidi’s family remains in the dark about why his routine check-in at the police station suddenly turned deadly. “It would be good to get an explanation for what happened,” said Elly Saidi. “I don’t know what instigated it: Why this time was so different than every other time?”
Her brother, she said, had gone to the same OPP station more than 30 times — every week for nine months — without incident in 2017.
Elly Saidi is chief executive of United World Voices, a registered charity in Ottawa that works with homeless youth and vulnerable women. She said her brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia early last year after the family pushed to have him assessed by a psychiatrist as part of a court proceeding.
The family had long believed that his criminality was fuelled by mental illness, but had never been able to get him diagnosed.
“We told lawyers for many years he needs help,” she said. “Like a lot of people in his position, they fall through the cracks. He should have been assessed and treated much earlier. We knew there was something wrong with him, but it was hard to get anyone to listen. That’s the frustrating part.”
Babak Saidi was born in Iran. His family, members of the persecuted Baha’i Faith community, fled the country while he was still a child after the Iranian revolution in 1979. They earned refugee status in Canada in 1985 and settled in Brockville.
Saidi went to Brockville Collegiate Institute, but struggled with attention deficit disorder and dropped out in Grade 10. He later developed a drug habit, which led him into the local drug trade.
He became a notorious figure in Brockville.
Saidi almost died in February 2000 when he was shot in the stomach by a man seeking revenge for an assault on his daughter. The shotgun blast peppered Saidi’s abdomen with 80 pellets and led to the removal of one of his kidneys.
Saidi was arrested in his hospital bed and charged with drug possession for the purpose of trafficking — cocaine and cash were found in his pockets — and assaulting a woman. He was sentenced to 22 months in jail for those offences.
Saidi felt harassed by the police. In one 2003 court hearing, a 29-year-old Saidi told a judge that police in Brockville “have been on my ass for 10 years.”
“They don’t like me and I don’t like them,” he told Ontario Court Justice Charles Anderson.
Elly Saidi said that while she doesn’t know what happened at the Morrisburg OPP detachment, she does know that her brother should not have died in the encounter.
“What is beyond doubt is that OPP members involved in this tragedy were unable to peacefully de-escalate this situation,” she said. “The OPP resorted to a lethal response to an unarmed individual with mental disabilities.”
She said the family wants the OPP to introduce comprehensive, mandatory training programs to better equip officers to deal with the mentally ill.
“I know that things can escalate from zero to 100 in a few seconds with mentally ill people,” she said. “The police need to know how to deal with that, how to de-escalate and contain the situation.”
The OPP did not respond to a request for comment on that suggestion.
In November 2015, the OPP published a report, Our People, Our Communities, which highlighted the increasing importance of mental health issues in policing. It said the OPP experienced a 42 per cent increase in calls for service related to mental health issues between 2007 and 2013. The service now handles more than 12,000 such calls each year.
In 2016, the OPP introduced a mandatory, half-day training session on de-escalation techniques for all uniformed officers. Last year, front-line officers received another half-day of training on mental illness and de-escalation.
“While there is more to be done, important strides have been made,” OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes said recently. “This is, in large pat, due to our members’ genuine desire to improve dealings with those who are going through a mental health crisis.”
Statistics compiled last year by Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director revealed that 142 people were fatally shot during interactions with police between January 1990 and December 2016.
“In many of these cases, the person shot by police was ‘in crisis,’” wrote police review director Gerry McNeilly in a March 2017 report.
That report reviewed recommendations made by 32 coroner’s inquests in Ontario during the past two decades and concluded: “Improved training for police officers focusing on identifying the symptoms of a person in crisis, containment, communication and de-escalation rather than the use of force has been recommended repeatedly.”
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